Posted
on August 21, 2014
Poetry
and poets are things we keep celebrating all year long—from China's
version of Poet's Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, Poetry and the Creative Mind Day,
and Bad Poetry Day
to celebrating individual poets such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Frost,
and Jack Prelutsky.
So...why
another holiday about poetry, celebrating poets? And why today, August
21?
Honestly,
I tried to figure it out and failed. But a LOT of different websites
state that August 21 is, in fact, Poet's Day...
and poetry is so
great...
I figured...Why not?
Trying
for something I haven't covered before is tough. I'm not going to
talk about limericks or haiku poems, because they have
their own special days, but how about shape poems and cinquain poems?
Shape
Poems
With
shape poems, think of a topic that lends itself to a simple shape. As
you brainstorm words, play with writing them in such a way that you
create an outline of the shape or a block of text that makes the
shape. Check out these examples:
Cinquain
Poems
American
poet Adelaide Crapsey (who has an unfortunate last name, in my
opinion) created a poetry form called cinquain. (Pronounced
sin-cane.) These short poems have a haiku-like structure.
Cinquains
are five lines long, with the following syllable pattern:
2 syllables
4 syllables
6 syllables
8 syllables
2 syllables
Cinquains
may or may not include rhymes. Where haiku often describe nature,
cinquains usually include an action or tell a (very short) story.
Here
are some examples:
November Night
by Adelaide Crapsey
Listen...
With
faint dry sound,
Like
steps of passing ghosts,
The
leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees
And
fall.
Cinquain
by Cindy Barden
Bat cracks against
The pitch, sending it out
Over the back fence, I did it!
Home run!
Here
is a website that gives some pointers about writing cinquains.
Also
on this date:
Plan ahead:
Check
out my Pinterest boards for:
And
here are my Pinterest boards for:
